Why hasn't Apple entered into the dedicated console market?

Yes, I know they made the Pippin back in the 90's, but that is when Apple was going downhill.

Apple could easily get in the game console market and destroy everyone else in sales. What third party developer wouldn't get on board with a dedicated gaming device made by Apple? I'm willing to bet a lot of them would be willing to make their games exclusive to Apple. We know they have excellent engineers who make very compelling and beautiful looking products. Apple also has some of the best advertising out there. What gives?

It's not as easy as you think, plus no matter how viable it seems on paper, Apple is still many years back of at least two of the big three. Their name brand is immense, yes, but investing in a market that only serves to be saturated isn't always a wise investment. I can see it happening, just that I see why it hasn't happened as well.

What reason would they have to get into that market? They do perfectly fine just having the app store rake in the cash.

Mobile Gaming is far more profitable, and they currently own the most popular platform for said outlet.

An Apple console would not destroy everyone else in sales they would put out hardware equal to PS4 or Xbox One and charge three times as much for it because it has the Apple brand on it. It would fail spectacularly.

Same reason Mattel barely did.

Mattel introduced the technology, although with cards, and the portal built into the system, what Skylanders, Amiibo, Disney Etc. use. They were going to have tons of games and but out a big marketing campaign. They had licensees from big franchises and then they saw something that made them stop with plans, they went for a weak system, scaled multiple things down, stop planning to add certain things, and completely limit it's roll out to few retailers in limited quantities.

Needless to say they were right on the ball, the thing did ok for a bit but completely died and didn't do overly well at that start just passable. They dropped the price and through out like 2 new games of the like 7 or so they put out and called it a day.

Apple would have to go in knowing they are probably not going to make much profit down the road, they know just taking their multiple library on the TV will not be enough either, making even more investment. Only thing Apple would have an advantage in over what Mattel tried to do is not have a trojan horse that could sink a lot of red if they went all in.

Destroy everyone else in sales? It takes awhile to build up first party devs which would be an important aspect of taking anyone's business.

What reason do they have to pour millions of dollars into investment, when they can get all the cash anyway by pouring in absolutely nothing, via iOS and the App Store?

1st party franchises don't really sell consoles anymore. Well, not as much as they use to. Apple could just pay third party publishers to make exclusive games for them.

Why did Microsoft get in the console market? They were doing just fine selling their Operating System. Sony was also doing just fine before they released the Playstation.

Because Sony refused to work with MS, and the fact that Sony and MS didn't get a long

Third party exclusives are no longer the norm what with the cost to produce a game and all.

**** Apple. We don't need any more consoles. Consoles need to die. We need a universal platform (PC) and have all exclusive games unite on it.

Apple dislike gaming.

They recently removed many games with Confederate flags from their store, despite being historical simulations. Very telling quote from their guidelines: "“If you want to criticise a religion, write a book,” the company instructs would-be developers. “If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical App.”

They think of games as silly toys, and would have no interest in being identified with a console. They'd probably hate the idea.

Funny thing is -- most Apple products AREN'T overpriced. Macbook Pro Retinas are competitively priced and beat pretty much every other similar laptop in its price category.

The iMac 5K Retina (which is a display + computer in one) costs LESS than the only other 5K display on the market (Dell). That essentially Apple giving you a CPU, RAM, SSD/HDD, GPU, Mobo (etc) all for free.

I'll agree with you on the iPhones though.. they're overpriced as shit.

No.

But what Apple does is they never make "cheap" products. They always have a steep entry level price but generally always have quality.

if Apple were to make a console in say, 2016.. I can't imagine them selling it for less than $699, but I bet you they'll put a really powerful GPU/CPU in there and innovate the design somehow.. maybe a fanless design for instance.

That's interesting. I've always known every single Apple product to be insanely overpriced. Maybe they're learning in some areas. I still wouldn't trust them to produce an affordable competitive console though as a company they are as far up their own ass as it is possible to get and yeah **** those phones lol.

The Xbox wasn't created because Sony refused to work with MS. What are you talking about?

3DO tried to do that and look how that turned out.

Didn't Apple say that they were going to make a new console?

Apple updates their product line on a yearly basis and look at it as an eco system. Traditional console cycles wouldnt fit in.

Apple relies on fanatical uneducated consumers to buy its overpriced underpowered overhyped products. The console market is already saturated for that :P

Macs barely play games so why would this even be a question.

I'm feeling very dizzy. D:

There's no reason to go into an industry with a 6% chance of long-term success after wasting over 1 billion dollars to Gain "Some" marketshare they may never get back.

Even if Apple where to go in with a couple FP games, a bunch of HD ports of Mobile games, they would have to sell a good amount to make an actual profit. Heck, just that strategy alone, with graphics slightly better than IOS Iphone 6 gaming, and some hardware exclusive features, would cost tons of money.

No it didn't.

It doesn't make any sense when the iphone and ipad exist. That is their "console".

Nice looking things does not make up for the insane mark-up from apple on nearly all of their products. Look at the Mac man.

please in ur best words explain how they would destroy everyone else in sales?

The barriers to entry are high and, like MS, Apple would be writing down the costs for years to be competitive. Apple's better off waiting for Sony to die or to try and purchase their way into the market than force their way in.

Flappy Bird would be a massacre app for an Apple console

i think they should, to expand. lots of dumb gamers that are extremely easy to milk and a white, slick looking console with an apple logo on it? i can see tons of nerds getting that thing.

Because they print money with their app store dealing with IOS,

teh "freemium games"

my 3gs has been working perfectly for 6 years, except the battery drains slightly faster than before. you truly get what you pay for.

There's a better chance of them making furniture than a traditional console.

A few years back, it really looked like Apple was going to jump into the console market. Either something has scared them off of that, or they're waiting to buy their way in.

Samsung, and to a lesser extent Amazon could jump in as well at some point. I think out of those three, that Samsung is the most likely. At some point they may buy Sony if Sony continues to spiral downwards.

I'm actually down with that now. Consoles have weakass off the shelf parts more or less and only a few games are exclusive.

On the other hand the fans will say they want their plug and play.

As for apple, there's no benefit for them.

Apple's entire hardware philosophy is based on selling aesthetically beautiful products for a massive profit.

Here's the problem with video game hardware - it's generally not sold for significant profit. As far as pricing goes, it's a "race to the bottom" in order to get more gamers using a particular console. The software is where most of the money gets made for Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

With iPad/iPhone, Apple can already have their cake and eat it too. They make large profits off of the device itself, then make large profits off of the software distributed on it.

The bigger question, I think, is why doesn't Apple TV have any native gaming apps, even though competitors like Fire TV do.

Every product they make is practically a device to get you to buy from iTunes - any console they made would have to be the same. It doesn't sound very attractive to me at least.

Yes they did. They wanted to make one console that could play all games. That is why they licensed out the 3DO tech to different companies. The 3DO was supposed to be the only console you would need, but it didn't work out for them.

Consoles aren't for cool kids and trendy looking hipsters. It'd ruin their image.

Be careful what you wish for. Their app store uses concepts that most of us would simply give up gaming over.

Pissy, small games that constantly nickle and dime you. No quality control. Adverts.

An apple console would be relatively well made, stripped down, incredibly over priced, with a million casual games, none of which will be nearly as good as what we have now.

Personally I wouldn't want an overpriced iConsole from Apple...

Some of apples software is leaps and bounds better value than the PC equivalent which is no better.

Why would you buy an inferior product that costs twice as much as it's competitors?

Boo Apple

to be fair to you, they would use some form of Mac OS, Built on Unix. Sony uses freeBSD, another form of Unix... so the support could easily be there.

Its about the lack of experience i think. They have no idea about dedicated consoles, nor how to make an effective service (look at iTunes, yes it may be the largest digital music market but that's though force, everybody (regardless of whether they are a fanboy) requires iTunes. So by default its the largest market, not through choice. itunes is pretty well known for being an horrendous POS on anything other than a Mac, and even they its pretty shitty.

my point being if they can't make a decent simple service for distribution of music they have zero chance of making a decent gaming distribution system either

PS... the AppStore btw IS itunes, they all connect to the same gateway server and use the same portals.